ReadFin Literary Journal (Winter 2018)

Foreword from the
Editor in Chief
A Sad Loss
Before long, the Bachelor of Writing and Publishing degree
behind this magazine will close down. The region will hardly
notice because it has never been the sort of activity that seeps
very deeply into the consciousness of the city’s northern suburbs.
Despite that, it’s a loss which we would do well to feel keenly.
Everyone has to learn to read, literature is taught quite widely,
but the skills of writing, editing and publishing move the whole
conversation to a higher level of activity which now, alas, will no
longer be practised in the region’s education system.
This is a shame. A great deal can be known about a society,
a nation, a place however small, by the things which are
understood, admired, loved and practised within its boundaries.
I think of Russia when it was in the grip of one of humanity’s
most terrifying tyrants, yet even Josef Stalin could not bring
himself to wipe out Dmitri Shostakovich, the composer who
refused to tell the world that everything was getting better when
he felt things were going badly under Communist Party rule. He
withdrew his Fourth Symphony from rehearsal because he knew
that the orchestra and its conductor were terrified of what would
happen to them if they presented it.
And what did he do next? He wrote his Fifth Symphony,
possibly the bravest piece of music ever written because, after
characterising the despot in a way that gave him a place in
the music, he poured his love of Russia, its huge spaces and its
overwhelming climate into the same music, challenging the
dictator, taking him on, inviting listeners to decide whose vision
offered them more.
When it was performed in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) and
Moscow, audiences applauded for minutes at a time. They knew
how much courage had been needed to write what they’d heard.
Stalin was a deeply superstitious man and understood what had
happened perhaps better than anyone else. He may have wanted
to murder the composer but he feared his art, and, like King Lear
with his fool, gave him the safety, the permission, that he gave
no other to say what had to be said.
Writers, editors and publishers have important work to do.
Any section of society that excuses itself from rendering these
activities their due is reducing itself to that silence which is a
form of obedience. If we can’t make people listen to us then we
can’t be the active citizens that democracy relies on. Let us hope
that the approaching withdrawal of an interesting and valuable
course, that has been something of a rarity in the region, will not
be permanent. Dmitri Shostakovich died in 1975, but his spirit
lives on whenever his music is played. Let us hope we are in a
pause, not a permanent silence.
Chester Eagle
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ReadFin Literary Journal